I think people are underestimating the problem of sexual assualt at universities - a survey of 1000 girls showed that 1/3 had been a victim of 'inappropriate touching or groping'. I know pretty much everyone agrees that rape is terrible, but many people have skewed ideas of consent, and whether something is sexual assault or 'just a joke'. I've heard lots of people say that they don't see a problem with things such as slapping a girl's arse or having sex with someone when they're completely wasted. Surely the conesnt class can't do any harm - even if the majority already are, plenty of people need to educated about what consent actually is. Anyway it's just one class (I think) so even if you are completely educated on consent then I don't see what the big deal is.

There was a ridiculous number of guys (and girls for that matter) at my sixth form who didn't seem to realise that someone being so drunk they could barely stand wasn't consent to be groped or have hands shoved up their skirts/down their pants. Like, I know it seems like common sense, but apparently some people don't seem to have quite grasped the idea of consent - the fact that dancing with someone isn't agreeing to sex, accepting a drink at a bar isn't agreeing to sex, spiking someone's drink with extra vodka etc to get them to "lighten up a little bit and have some fun" (aka get them drunk so they'll sleep with me) isn't what you should be doing.

Most people probably know that dragging someone into an alley and forcibly raping them is, you know, illegal and a bad thing, but there's quite a few people who think that if it's not forcible, then it doesn't count as rape. Coerced consent ("I'll give you a lift home if you do A/B/C, but if not then I'm leaving you here without a way to get back") or deliberately getting someone drunk to have sex with them is apparently acceptable according to a (terrifyingly high) number of people that I've seen on TSR and in real life.

Having seen a documentary of 17/18 year olds being walked through a case study of a rape from several different angles, I think this is probably pretty necessary and not "too late" as some people are suggesting. Some of the guys seemed to think that if a girl got within 5m she was essentially giving them "consent".

Really though I do agree it shouldn't be up to the universities to do this, it should be part of school education. Likewise I question it being male only - consent works for both men and women and if you are presenting it to men only you may as well just call it "don't rape people classes".

(Original post by ElspethC)
It's only the OP that's saying it's for males only - the article says that's it's for the "fresher's cohort". So no, probably not just for males only.

I see. - In that case I guess it's OK, if not a little bit patronising. I guess it would help differentiate the line between consensual and rape, as many above have said some folk don't seem to understand where that line stands.

(Original post by fr0sr_)
I see. - In that case I guess it's OK, if not a little bit patronising. I guess it would help differentiate the line between consensual and rape, as many above have said some folk don't seem to understand where that line stands.

I agree that it does seem kind of patronising at first sight, but like you said I don't think some people quite understand what consent means.

In the article there was a second year criticising the scheme and said "No student arrives at a university not knowing if forcing someone to have sex is acceptable or not", but the whole point is that rape and sexual assault isn't just "forcing someone to have sex" - getting consent covers a whole host of other things (groping, coercing oral sex, carrying on when someone's already said that they don't want to) and a lot of people aren't aware of that.

(Original post by 999tigger)
I did say id have less fo an issue if it was for both sexes.
TBF the picture they used looks like it's all male. Assuming it was a pucture of the lecture.
Does York have a particular problem?

Why shouldnt everyone have to undergo it including 2nd and 3rd years?
It seems even more uneven that postgrads have to do it.

I don't know about York having a particular problem or anything, but regarding the photo I thought it was probably just a picture of a different talk/seminar? It said the classes only apply from this next year onwards, so I thought it probably wouldn't be that specific class since they wouldn't have held one yet.

Do you have a source for to actual survey itself and not the article? I'm just curious about what they classified as 'sexual assault' since the article seemed to make a distinction between that and eg. inappropriate groping.